While your post takes the humorous side, I think this shows some dark foreshadowing. I think it's the fact that IBM is the aggressor here that kinda sets me on edge. With their right hand they offer peace, source code, and some token patents for the FS/OS crowd. With their left they use software patents to strike those who don't comply.
So which version of reality should we believe? Personally, I'll stay cautious, with hope they really do wish to reform the patent system.
[MS] should know their software better than anyone else since they have access to their source code. Ergo, they should be able to make better bug reports.
If this were true, proprietary software companies would never have to worry about people finding holes in their software. However, this is not the case: exploits are found all the time by people with no access to source code, and these exploits seem to outnumber the ones found by the people who do have access to the source.
As a matter of honour. IE is really a buggy POS. Microsoft should own up to it and not rely on other people to document their software.
I agree with the sentiment that one should be honest about the quality of one's goods and services. However I feel that, through the IE blog and such, MS is owning up to the fact that IE isn't really that great. Of course, I'm assuming that this isn't what you mean, and perhaps you think MS should have public bugzilla or something.
The common problem I see in both of your points is, of course, the almighty buck. Catching all (or even most) bugs before release is rather hard, and you would need a lot of smart people running QA on your code.
As for a more public bug process, the economics look pretty bad. The hardware and bandwidth for a public IE bug tracker hosted by MS would cost a lot to operate. They would also have to devote more work hours to the bug process, as fake, invalid and duplicate bugs would no doubt pour in. It also might be helpful for those wishing to find new exploits.
Considering how much processing power is already packed into the XBox 360, I'm curious on how they intend to top that and keep it cost effective.
I'm wondering how they intend to make the 360 cost-effective. One would hope that they learned some lessons from last time, but you never know. Also, there's the fact that MS generally doesn't do too well outside its cash cows.
And before the fanbots bite, yes I know selling things below cost can be part of an overall business strategy. However I have not seen any evidence of how MS plans to get out of the pit they dug for themselves.
Sure, Sony's playing the graphics game too, but they also have many years of experience in designing and manufacturing consumer electronics, as well as their own fabrication facilities. These things give them a huge advantage in producing all those expensive components.
ATI drivers are closed-source as well, and that's the only other big player in 3D graphics cards.
There's a bit of a difference here. For a while, ATI released specs to third parties (under NDA?), so Radeons through 9200 have 2D and 3D support in Xorg. Also, the 'r300' project worked on reverse-engineering said chip, so there will eventually be support for cards up to the X850 (the r300 stuff is now in-tree at x.org and DRI). Unfortunately, there is no Free driver (not even 2D) for any cards based on r400. Compare this to the Free Nvidia drivers, which don't support 3D for anything.
Now Intel has come out with actual real-live open-source drivers
This is not really the same as Nvidia or ATI. Intel releases chip specs, so there's already Free drivers for all their graphics "accelerators".
I doubt that the SCO case will establish a precedant of much interest since as far as I can see there are no interesting legal issues at stake
How about "Don't fuck with IBM"?
Re:Doublespeak he can't avoid...
on
Jobs Unfazed by Zune
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Your entire post is absolutely correct. However, the reason this is so is because the millions upon millions do not understand what's happening when these problems crop up. If all of these people understood how DRM is being used to: A) lock them into one device, and B) restrict their freedom, they would definitely start asking for compatability.
When the middle class knows they've been duped with their spending money, change happens.
Yeah sounds like you're really familiar with Guitar Hero. Each of those headings is just a name for that tier of songs. You unlock each tier as you play. BFD.
Yeah, this type of thing has never happened before. Especially not on the 360 or the Xbox. Oh and I'm sure Nintendo and Sony never updated the firmware shipped with the PS2 or Cube as time went on...
George W Bush is the head of his Administration. His Administration has bullied people, groups, and entire nations more times than I could list during his tenure in the White House. If he was truly such a "non-bully, average upstanding Joe" type, he would work to remove these people from power. He has not done this.
And as for how good of a job Mr. Bush has done, I shall remind you of the oath he took when he was sworn into office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
So what you're saying is that bombs are less evil because they can destroy non-human targets. By this logic, nuclear weapons are the least evil, because they can destroy and hurt non-human targets the most efficiently.
The problem is that the GPLv2 was appropriate not just to the realm of free software, but to the intent of open source as well,
I must have missed something. Does GPL 3 violate the Open Source Definition?
Sadly, the outcome, as in software, will be to fork the project. Developers who are more in the free software camp will switch readily to GPLv3; those who are more in the open source camp will use GPLv2.
As an aside, I don't think this is a fair distinction to draw. You could just as easily say "those more in the Open Source camp use BSD", when clearly things are bit more complex than that.
Anyway, I realized one key thing when thinking about this: all GNU software will become GPL3. This means GCC, the rest of the toolchain, the system libraries, userland tools, and all the other stuff (GNOME, GIMP, etc). So even if there is some sort of "split", it won't fracture the world in two.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, yesterday we got a Seanbaby article that was, like, 3 years old, so this is pretty big improvement!
While your post takes the humorous side, I think this shows some dark foreshadowing. I think it's the fact that IBM is the aggressor here that kinda sets me on edge. With their right hand they offer peace, source code, and some token patents for the FS/OS crowd. With their left they use software patents to strike those who don't comply.
So which version of reality should we believe? Personally, I'll stay cautious, with hope they really do wish to reform the patent system.
[MS] should know their software better than anyone else since they have access to their source code. Ergo, they should be able to make better bug reports.
If this were true, proprietary software companies would never have to worry about people finding holes in their software. However, this is not the case: exploits are found all the time by people with no access to source code, and these exploits seem to outnumber the ones found by the people who do have access to the source.
As a matter of honour. IE is really a buggy POS. Microsoft should own up to it and not rely on other people to document their software.
I agree with the sentiment that one should be honest about the quality of one's goods and services. However I feel that, through the IE blog and such, MS is owning up to the fact that IE isn't really that great. Of course, I'm assuming that this isn't what you mean, and perhaps you think MS should have public bugzilla or something.
The common problem I see in both of your points is, of course, the almighty buck. Catching all (or even most) bugs before release is rather hard, and you would need a lot of smart people running QA on your code.
As for a more public bug process, the economics look pretty bad. The hardware and bandwidth for a public IE bug tracker hosted by MS would cost a lot to operate. They would also have to devote more work hours to the bug process, as fake, invalid and duplicate bugs would no doubt pour in. It also might be helpful for those wishing to find new exploits.
What are the best features of IE7 that sets it above the competition
Shoot, man, even I know the answer to this: being shipped as the default browser on 95% of all PCs.
Microsoft does not recoup the money they lose on Xbox hardware through other Xbox-related revenue.
free trade
The best part is that PS3 games are region-free...
Your post is both on-topic and insightful.
Not.
I realize I messed up the R*00 numbering. It's the R500 series (Radeon X1300+) that doesn't work.
Considering how much processing power is already packed into the XBox 360, I'm curious on how they intend to top that and keep it cost effective.
I'm wondering how they intend to make the 360 cost-effective. One would hope that they learned some lessons from last time, but you never know. Also, there's the fact that MS generally doesn't do too well outside its cash cows.
And before the fanbots bite, yes I know selling things below cost can be part of an overall business strategy. However I have not seen any evidence of how MS plans to get out of the pit they dug for themselves.
Sure, Sony's playing the graphics game too, but they also have many years of experience in designing and manufacturing consumer electronics, as well as their own fabrication facilities. These things give them a huge advantage in producing all those expensive components.
Oh ok
ATI drivers are closed-source as well, and that's the only other big player in 3D graphics cards.
There's a bit of a difference here. For a while, ATI released specs to third parties (under NDA?), so Radeons through 9200 have 2D and 3D support in Xorg. Also, the 'r300' project worked on reverse-engineering said chip, so there will eventually be support for cards up to the X850 (the r300 stuff is now in-tree at x.org and DRI). Unfortunately, there is no Free driver (not even 2D) for any cards based on r400. Compare this to the Free Nvidia drivers, which don't support 3D for anything.
Now Intel has come out with actual real-live open-source drivers
This is not really the same as Nvidia or ATI. Intel releases chip specs, so there's already Free drivers for all their graphics "accelerators".
I doubt that the SCO case will establish a precedant of much interest since as far as I can see there are no interesting legal issues at stake
How about "Don't fuck with IBM"?
Your entire post is absolutely correct. However, the reason this is so is because the millions upon millions do not understand what's happening when these problems crop up. If all of these people understood how DRM is being used to: A) lock them into one device, and B) restrict their freedom, they would definitely start asking for compatability.
When the middle class knows they've been duped with their spending money, change happens.
Good luck with that.
Don't reply to my posts if you're just going to babble on about an unrelated topic. Thanks.
Yeah sounds like you're really familiar with Guitar Hero. Each of those headings is just a name for that tier of songs. You unlock each tier as you play. BFD.
Their other option was to stop patching the hell out of Firefox and do what every other distro does - get with the program.
Um yeah, because this is the whole point of Free Software: don't ever improve software, just follow what the original author tells you to do.
Only if you apply it sloppily.
Not really. But hey, logic can be a drag.
Have you ever visited Google Video? Yeah, no possibility for infringement there. No sir.
Yeah, this type of thing has never happened before. Especially not on the 360 or the Xbox. Oh and I'm sure Nintendo and Sony never updated the firmware shipped with the PS2 or Cube as time went on...
Ooh, your anecdote totally counters mine.
And as for how good of a job Mr. Bush has done, I shall remind you of the oath he took when he was sworn into office:
If you truly believe that he has done a good job, then you must reconcile this oath with quite a few convincing arguments to the contrary.
hundreds of even thousands
200,000? 400,000? 600,000? OK I'll stop.
So what you're saying is that bombs are less evil because they can destroy non-human targets. By this logic, nuclear weapons are the least evil, because they can destroy and hurt non-human targets the most efficiently.
The problem is that the GPLv2 was appropriate not just to the realm of free software, but to the intent of open source as well,
I must have missed something. Does GPL 3 violate the Open Source Definition?
Sadly, the outcome, as in software, will be to fork the project. Developers who are more in the free software camp will switch readily to GPLv3; those who are more in the open source camp will use GPLv2.
As an aside, I don't think this is a fair distinction to draw. You could just as easily say "those more in the Open Source camp use BSD", when clearly things are bit more complex than that.
Anyway, I realized one key thing when thinking about this: all GNU software will become GPL3. This means GCC, the rest of the toolchain, the system libraries, userland tools, and all the other stuff (GNOME, GIMP, etc). So even if there is some sort of "split", it won't fracture the world in two.